Defying the VIPIRG study, “Out of Sight: Policing Poverty in Victoria”, the VicPD claim their relationship with Street Community, homeless, and Tent City residents is positive.

The VicPD also made it clear that they intend to focus more on Policing Mental Health.
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“Acting” as though the Policing of Poverty is Hunky Dory

The VicPD Mental Health Aspirations (who needs social workers?)

It was trippy, my afternoon plans were sent adrift into a surreal world by merely opening the wrong door. I meant to attend the Committee to End Homelessness Victoria meeting, but inadvertently walked in on some sort of Committee to Support the Policing of Poverty – and they had a superstar visitor, the camera shy “acting” Chief of Victoria Police, Del Manek.

The unquestioning fans were in awe of their hero who was beyond reproach, in their star struck eyes.

The Chief opined about the great relationship his police department has with the homeless, about how the police should be commended for not blitzing the Super InTent City homeless camp in SWAT uniforms.

With impressive flexibility Manek was able to continue his diatribe patting himself on the back with both hands and doing so without pulling a muscle – even while juggling claims about the VicPD’s impressive response times.

After making more claims, this time of no arrests at Super InTent City, the “acting” Chief produced his best puppy dog eyes while telling a sad story of visiting four officers in the hospital who had been injured during an arrest at Tent City. The “acting” Chief’s puppy dog eyes swole larger, and on edge of tear as he wove his sad tale.

By his account it must have been a horrific scene that can harden a police officer; to see the hospital emergency ward floor littered with ouchless Band-Aid wrappers, and officers facing an afternoon off work with pay after four of them, with the help from a Taser, arrested one man.

The horror, and the, uh, the humanity, ya, the humanity – it brought the glint of a tear to the awestruck eyes of the fan club who were drinking glass after glass of the purple Kool-Aid.
At one point the Superstar Chief grew indignant when having to justify the SWAT team search of the new NO NAME soft incarceration shelter on Johnson, the abandoned former care home, now fortress.

The wide-eyed “acting” Chief’s story began to fall apart when proclaiming that the apparently warrantless search was under the blessing of the residents’ overlord and gatekeeper, PHS (Portland Hell Society), and that they were hunting for a dangerous criminal who was alleged to be wandering floor to floor of the shelter with “possible access to a gun”.

Veracity’s ears were burning when existing video contradicts the “acting” Chief’s claim that the floors had been emptied of civilians for their protection – but his fans eyes widened in amazement as his fable continued. I don’t think any of them, including the “acting” Chief, had viewed the resident’s video evidence the “acting” Chief was now dismissing.

…and where is the gun this dangerous villain had access to? Did it exist, or was it a bag a skittles? Is this yet another trumped up police version or false report from the frequent NIMBY 911 caller club who unaccountably and repeatedly abuse the emergency system to stigmatize/harass the homeless, which in turn benefits the police who use the increased 911 calls to justify bigger budgets and heavier policing of poverty? Isn’t it illegal to knowingly make false 911 calls, except maybe a few years back – in Salem?

…isn’t making false 911 calls referred to as SWATting?

The media and police silence of the SWAT Team heroically foiling the roaming armed villain incident was defended by the “acting” Chief on the grounds that the police don’t like to report such incidents, and they didn’t want to further stigmatize the people they were stigmatizing with disproportionate policing. The VicPD Chief groupies sympathized with the predicament the police were in, instead of the victims of this heavy handed policing.

The SWAT Team search story has enough huge holes in it to see back to the even more bizarre June 8th No-Warrant Search/Raid of Tent City, when a large army of police entered every single residence in the entire village of Super InTent City …without warrants.

First, there was supposedly an injured person needing immediate medical attention, but the army of police arrived without any medical personnel or EMT, which brought question to the veracity of the purported emergency.

Then it had supposedly been a dead body search all along; a dead body the police let ferment for a part of the day, because it turns out the 911 call came in about ½ day earlier…

…say what? After the late night 911 call, the police initiated the search the next day, after breakfast, somewhere around noon – for the injured person needing immediate medical attention, which they brought none of, or the rotting corpse – whichever version you choose to say WTF over.

Why did they delay the search?
…perhaps to give the officers an opportunity to sleep in, and polish their batons they used and brandished in the ‘welfare check” to “protect themselves”?
…perhaps to give the officers a chance to charge their “welfare search” camera batteries?
…and the police found no injured person requiring medical attention, or rotting corpse (zombie?).

There are many witnessed events of disproportionate policing of the homeless, with studies and research to support it, but this diatribe would turn into a book to properly explore the topic.

The tragedy of this is the reality that the homeless and street community – the poor – seldom have the access and resources to confront these injustices, and too many obstacles, including stigma, which protects the police from their constant violation of the street community’s rights.

…and then things got weird.
Perhaps at first the “acting” Chief didn’t realize he was talking out loud when he blurted out his dreams of multiple-choice-test quickie social work classes to qualify police officers to deal with mental health issues, but when much of his enthralled audience seemed to be refilling their glasses with his purple Kool-Aid, the “acting” Chief rolled with it …but the few not hypnotized with fandom were still left wondering;

Why do the police think they should be doing social and mental health work?
…because they think they have a knack for it?
…to ease the work load of actual trained and experienced social and mental health workers?
…to diversify police revenue?
…to justify budget increases for one of the richest and best staffed police departments in Canada (with one of the worst reputations for crime-solving rates)?
…to increase opportunities to use weapons to solve social and mental health issues?
…to help fill prisons with the mentally ill?

*and contrary to what “acting” Chief Del Manek rudely and dismissively said to the unquestioning sheeple, we’re NOT just unconstructively looking for things that are wrong, to negatively criticize – we’re reporting injustice to deaf ears and blind eyes hiding behind a thin blue line, supported by those who choose to remain neutral in a time of crisis.